The 18th Brussels Development Briefing will be on natural disasters, humanitarian assistance and rural development and will take place on 12th May 2010 (8h30-13h00) at the Borschette Center, Room 1A. This Briefing will discuss Humanitarian needs and responses looking first at recent trends and challenges and innovative and responsive approaches to future challenges. The earthquake in Haiti as many other recent natural disasters have highlighted the fragility of some States and the need for strong institutions able to strengthen risk reduction mechanisms and disaster preparedness and increase the effectiveness of response to disasters. The need for coordination and effectiveness in interventions by donors and actors is also key issue. We would like to share lessons learnt from recent experiences as to minimize the scale of future negative impact and long-term recovery. We would like to look at the impact on rural development and also the role of agriculture and rural development in rebuilding and rehabilitation efforts. Panellists will come from various organizations such as the World Food Programme, the FAO and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. We will also receive insights from DG ECHO and DG Development officials.

European Parliament (Brussels):- 26th to 27th April: Meeting of the Committee on Development with the participation of EU Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid, Kristalina Georgieva- 27th to 28th April: Meeting of the International Trade CommitteeEU Presidency (Luxembourg): - 26th April: Council of Foreign Affairs and Defence- 27th April: General Affairs Council and Foreign Affairs Council ACP Secretariat (Brussels):- 27th April: Enlarged Bureau of the Committee of Ambassadors - 27th April: Sub-Committee on Sustainable Development- 29th April: ACP-EU Committee of Ambassadors

Why do we need a Communication on Tax and Development? Supporting developing countries in mobilising domestic revenues and in fighting tax evasion is key in efforts to eradicate poverty as measured by the Millennium Development Goals. Increasing domestic revenue enables these countries to spend more on sustainable public services needed to achieve these goals. Efficient, fair and sustainable tax systems are also critical for state building and promoting democracy and improved economic governance. The EU is committed to tackling the issue of tax governance in developing countries, and to drawing attention at the international level to the considerable impact that taxes have on development. Taxation has global consequences - all over the world, governments lose billions in revenue every year because of harmful tax practices – both developed and developing countries are affected. According to a Norwegian government commission illegal money flows from developing countries were at least seven times higher than official development assistance. Plugging these tax "leaks" requires International tax cooperation and making developing countries benefit from international initiatives.

The European Union (EU)’s interest and involvement in foreign direct investment (FDI) is by no means new. However, it has only been comparatively recently that one has been able to begin to distinguish the particularities of a specific EU approach to FDI, especially when placed within a broader developmental context. The approach has been most visible during the ongoing negotiations of Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) with the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) grouping of States. Though the EU-ACP relationship is often promoted (by the EU) as a model of mutual and benign cooperation between economically divergent States, the relationship highlights, in fact, political and normative challenges for both sides. In particular, whereas the EU has sought to utilise its links with the ACP countries to fashion a uniquely global role for itself, practice suggests this relationship is much more problematic for both sides. And what has in the past proved true for trade, is proving equally true in relation to FDI. This paper seeks to critically address the role of the EU as a global investment actor, with particular focus on the supposed synergies between FDI as a development assistance tool and FDI as a means to promote market liberalization. This is especially significant as the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon in December 2009 has, for the first time, introduced the first explicit reference to foreign investment in the EU’s treaty arrangements.

The commitment to provide new finance in support of climate change actions in developing countries was one of the few areas where tangible progress was made at the Copenhagen COP meeting. In light of this, securing a system that supports such financial flows to developing countries is an immediate challenge for the international community. This paper examines Europe’s approach to the provision of such finance. Over the immediate period up to 2012 there are a number of choices for Europe: whether to continue the focus on fund mobilisation or to direct more effort at the design of optimal disbursement channels within developing countries; whether to continue with a range of initiatives or to acknowledge any redundancy or competition and address these; and how to align with outside global interests, including the United States, in order to keep the UNFCCC process alive.

Adequate and effective development aid: Belgium should set an example as current holder of the EU Presidency. At their meeting in Gleneagles, Scotland, in 2005, G8 members stated their intention to eliminate poverty and to double aid to the world’s poorest countries. Five years later, at a time when the United Nations is about to evaluate progress made in achieving its Millennium Development Goals (MDG), budgets for official development assistance (ODA) remain inadequate, and fall below the promises and commitments made previously. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has just published the ODA figures for member countries in 2009, and the results are rather mixed. European aid as a whole has decreased to 0.44% of gross national income (GNI) and is too low to meet the 2010 objective of 0.56% of GNI. Only five states out of twenty-three OECD member states achieved or surpassed the objective of 0.7%. In terms of percentage change from 2008, ten countries have increased their ODA/GNI ratio, including Belgium with 11.5%. Regarding Africa, which had been identified as a priority objective, it is clear that the continent will in fact receive less than half of the aid promised in 2005. With only five years to go before the deadline fixed for completing the MDGs, discussions remain over the amounts of aid and how best to deliver and organize assistance. However, the challenges of various ongoing crises (food security, climate change and financial stability) and global public goods are such that there is a good chance that ODA will remain insufficient. This is why there are regular calls for innovative financial levies, for example, by introducing a tax on financial transactions, raising additional funds to combat climate change, or tightening regulations so that transnational businesses respect social and environmental standards wherever they are operating. The National Centre for Cooperation and Development (CNCD-11.11.11) calls on Belgium, as holder of the EU Presidency in the second half of 2010, to continue its aid increase and to advocate improvements in the quantity and quality of aid at the European level. The forthcoming six-month Belgian presidency is a historic opportunity for Belgium to press the international community to introduce effective measures to ensure it can achieve its own development goals.

The European Commission has adopted an ambitious action plan for EU action to speed up progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). In 2009, the EU aid level has slightly decreased and amounted €49bn. This corresponds to 0.42% of EU GNI, making the EU still far from meeting the intermediate collective target of 0,56% GNI by 2010, before reaching 0.7% EU GNI by 2015. The EU remains the most generous global donor, providing over half of global aid. The Commission proposes to Member States a number of actions in support of MDGs. They aim at increasing the level of aid while making aid more efficient and focused on those countries and sectors most in need. To feed into the action plan, the Commission also adopted a Communication on taxation and development which aims at increasing developing countries' domestic revenues through building stronger domestic fiscal systems and fighting tax evasion internationally. The action plan sets out a possible EU position ahead of the UN Summit on the MDGs this September.

European citizens broadly support the new aims of agricultural policy as conducted at European Union level and a majority are in favour of maintaining its budget. This is one of the main findings of a survey of people's attitudes to the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Following two similar, recent polls carried out in 2006 and 2007, this latest survey confirms that the guiding principles and aims of the CAP are supported by a majority of people. The survey was carried out between 13 November and 9 December 2009 by TNS Opinion at the behest of the European Commission's Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development. Following the traditional Eurobarometer method, a thousand individual interviews were conducted in each of the twenty-seven Member States of the European Union.

The French government is currently preparing a French strategy for the EU development policy, while at the same time drafting a global framework document for its own development policy. In response, Coordination SUD has prepared a position paper that encompasses the demands and expectations of its various working groups with regard to Europe’s development policy. On 8 April, Coordination SUD met the Minister of Foreign and European Affairs (MAEE) to discuss consultation possibilities on this strategy. At the next meeting, the French proposal will be discussed in more detail, with contributions from Coordination SUD, based on its own position paper.

As global population grows and access to sanitation improves, the world's forests are "under assault" from paper companies competing to respond to growing consumer demand for toilet tissue, the only paper product that cannot be recycled after use, writes the Worldwatch Institute. "Steadily increasing demand for toilet paper in developing countries is a critical factor in the impact that toilet paper manufacturers have on forests around the world," writes Noelle Robbins in the latest issue of World Watch magazine, published by the Worldwatch Institute think-tank.

The WTO Doha Round could have a significant positive impact on world cotton prices and contribute to the expansion of cotton production and exports in developing countries. However, the likelihood of such an outcome is highly dependent on the depth of the subsidy reductions adopted by WTO members. The poor record of internal policy reforms in key subsidizing countries and the failure of the US to comply with recommendations from the WTO Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) highlight the importance of multilateral trade negotiations in addressing the profound distortions that characterize the world cotton market. Meanwhile, unilateral domestic policy reforms in the EU and US have had limited if any impact on world cotton markets. The 2003-04 reform of the EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) changed the guaranteed minimum price for cotton to a mix of coupled and allegedly decoupled payments. In the US, the 2008 Farm Bill kept cotton subsidies largely unchanged, indicating an unwillingness to comply with the DSB panel rulings or the mandates from the Hong Kong Ministerial Declaration.

In September 2005, Guyana signed an agreement with neighbouring Brazil to provide us with the technology used to produce ethanol. Ethanol, simply put, is a high-octane fuel produced from sugarcane that can be used as an alternative or additive to petrol. With the European Union’s decision to halt preferential pricing to ACP countries, this technology certainly offers us another viable means of sustaining our sugar industry. However, if we play our cards just right, ethanol could be more than just a quick fix in the face of a scary fiscal situation. It would be wise for us to aggressively pursue this alternative given the declining prices we are going to be getting in our historic sugar markets, to stem the potential job losses for sugar workers from a declining sugar industry, and to reduce our dependence on imported fossil fuels which consume a significant proportion of our foreign exchange earnings. Brazil, the world’s leading producer of sugar, is also the world’s leading producer of ethanol. The country started out on a small scale simply to make itself less dependent on the rising cost of petrol; the type of fuel that keeps our cars on the streets each day. However, as the demand for ethanol consistently grew, Brazil became a model for research and use of this new fuel. In fact, demand for ethanol in Brazil is so high that it is expected that two out of every three new cars sold will be Flex cars, short for flexible fuel. Flex fuel is a mixture of 85% ethanol and 15% petrol. A Scottish newspaper had published an article about the agreement between Brazil and Guyana. This article quoted the then new president of Ford Brazil as saying, “Demand has been unbelievable. I am hard pressed to think of any other technology that has been such a success so quickly.”

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has published an analysis of the levels of dioxins and related substances in food and animal feed. The report, which was prepared by EFSA’s Data Collection and Exposure unit, is based on over 7,000 samples collected by 21 European countries between 1999 and 2008. EFSA was asked by the European Commission to evaluate dioxin contamination levels in relation to maximum levels which have been set for different categories of food and feed in the EU in order to protect consumers. Dioxins and similar compounds, such as dioxin-like polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), include a range of toxic substances which are formed by burning – e.g. through waste incineration or forest fires – and some industrial processes. Their presence in the environment has declined since the 1970s, following concerted efforts at the EU level. Dioxins are found at low levels in many foods. They do not cause immediate health problems, but long-term exposure to high levels of dioxins has been shown to cause a range of effects, including cancer. Their persistence and the fact that they accumulate in the food chain, notably in animal fat, therefore continues to cause some safety concerns. The highest average levels of dioxins and dioxin-like PCBs in relation to fat content were observed for liver and liver products from animals. The highest average levels in relation to total product weight were for fish liver and products derived from fish liver. In animal feed, the highest average levels were found in fish oil.

The world's poor appear to have become pawns in a political battle over the European Union's (EU) new diplomatic corps.Catherine Ashton, foreign policy chief for the 27-country bloc, is urging that responsibility for development aid should fall within the scope of the European External Action Service (EEAS) that she is in the process of establishing. In recent statements, Ashton has argued that if the EU is to have a successful development policy, it must be compatible with its broader strategies on issues such as security. Yet many observers of European politics suspect that the British baroness is more concerned with seizing control of a sizeable budget than in ensuring that development aid brings tangible benefits to the poor. At 15 billion dollars per year, development aid represents one of the top five areas of spending administered by the EU's executive arm, the European Commission.

The Spanish Foreign Affairs Minister, Miguel Ángel Moratinos, opened the 19th ACP-EU Parliamentary Assembly on Monday in Tenerife, together with the two co-presidents of this body, Louis Michel and Charles Milupi, with 400 representatives from the EU and 78 African, Caribbean and Pacific nations taking part in the event. In his speech, the Spanish minister advocated managing development aid more effectively to avoid nine million people dying of starvation in the 21st century. The members of the working party representing the European Union and Africa-Caribbean-Pacific (ACP) assembly signed a joint statement calling for a feasibility study into a single financial instrument for co-operation, to help overcome the difficulties caused by using ERDF funds for this purpose. The chief demand contained in the document relates to promoting the creation of an area of cooperation called the "Euro-African Atlantic space". In addition, there is a desire to take a further step in support of the development of regional ACP-OMR (outermost regions) insertion in order to promote growth in this area and guarantee security and peace in the whole area.

Will Catherine Ashton’s new plan for a “European External Action Service” suffice to propel the EU to the world power status to which it lays claim? Nothing is less certain, in view of the sheer size of the envisaged diplomatic colossus, the states’ reluctance to yield any of their prerogatives to it and the institutional wrangling over its powers. The African Union (AU) has committed to a vision of Africa that is ‘integrated, prosperous and peaceful … driven by its own citizens, a dynamic force in the global arena’ (Vision and Mission of the African Union, May 2004). This guide is an effort to take up the challenge of achieving this vision. It is a tool to assist activists to engage with AU policies and programmes. It describes the AU decision-making process and outlines the roles and responsibilities of the AU institutions. It also contains a sampling of the experiences of those non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that have interacted with the AU. There are important proposals under discussion for the restructuring of the AU and its organs, to advance the integration of the African continent more rapidly. These discussions create new opportunities for interaction between civil society and AU organs. This guide aims to help those organisations that wish to engage the AU but do not currently know where to start by providing an outline of the key institutions and processes and suggesting ways to influence them.

The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) has published a report titled “Global Trade and Environmental Impact Study of the EU Biofuels Mandate.” The report is one of four commissioned by the European Commission to assess the impacts of the 10% target for the use of renewable energy in road transport fuels by 2020. The study uses a global general equilibrium model, separately including numerous first generation ethanol and biodiesel feedstocks, co-generated products, farming techniques, as well as direct, and indirect land-use changes (ILUC) resulting from the mandated increase in consumption of biofuels. Additionally, as the model is global, it also considers different multi- and bilateral trade scenarios. The results indicate that there is ILUC associated with the EU mandate, but that the mandate will still result in global greenhouse gas (GHG) emission savings of nearly 13 million tons over 20 years. Additionally, the authors find that the mandate will have only a negligible effect on food prices and, concerning biodiesel, even with ILUC taken into account, imported palm oil remains as efficient as European rapeseed. However, the authors warn that ILUC emissions rapidly increase after a certain threshold, eroding the sustainability of the biofuels in question.

The European Commission approved Amflora for use in starch production, and for use by the paper industry. The decision has been controversial and President Barroso was questioned about this decision by MEPs. On 2 March 2010, the Commission adopted two decisions regarding the Genetically Modified Amflora potato : the first authorises the cultivation of Amflora in the EU for industrial use, and the second relates to the use of Amflora’s starch by-products as feed. The decision to authorise the cultivation of Amflora marks the end of a process which started in Sweden in January 2003. The authorisations are valid for 10 years. National governments could not reach a decisive opinion on whether to approve or reject the potato variety, neither when they voted on the issue in an expert committee nor when the issue was put to farm ministers. Commenting on the issue, Health and Consumer Policy Commissioner John Dalli said : "Responsible innovation will be my guiding principle when dealing with innovative technologies. After an extensive and thorough review of the five pending GM files, it became clear to me that there were no new scientific issues that merited further assessment… By taking these decisions, the European Commission fulfils its role in a responsible manner. These decisions are based on a series of favourable safety assessments carried out over the years by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA).In parallel we have today launched a reflection on how to combine a European authorisation system with the freedom of Member Sates to decide on cultivation on GMO’s."

With its sky-high poverty levels and average life expectancy of just 51 years, South Africa is not a country we generally associate with extravagant binge-flying lifestyles, turbo-consumerism, and shopping trips to New York. How bizarre then that per capita carbon emissions in South Africa are now higher than in many European countries. While most South Africans are unlikely to ever own a plasma screen TV or Hummer, their carbon footprints still appear to be only slightly less than your average Japanese, and their national carbon emissions are now greater than those of France. The situation becomes more comprehensible when you look at South Africa's industrial base, with 60% of South Africa's electricity being guzzled by heavy industry, and most of that comes from dirty coal. Now this key global climate player wants another coal station that would pollute as much as the two dirtiest plants in Britain put together, and cause a further surge in its national emissions – and they want you to pay for it. Far from benefiting ordinary South Africans, they will also be forced into subsidising this artificially low-cost electricity, for the benefit of multinational mining companies. It's no wonder that African civil society movements are leading the opposition to this development.

The EIB has provided a long-term loan of EUR 4.3 million (650 million Vatu) to support the construction of a 2.75 MW wind farm on the island of Efate, 12 km west of the capital, Port Vila. The project is the first wind farm to be implemented in the Vanuatu archipelago and is designed to help meet the country's growing energy needs. It is hoped that it will form a reference project for other Pacific island countries facing specific energy constraints typical of remote islands.

In 2006, the governments of Australia, Chile and New Zealand took the initiative to launch the process of International Consultations on the establishment of South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Organisation (SPRFMO). The purpose of the Consultations was to cooperate in addressing the gap in the international conservation and management of nonhighly migratory fisheries and protection of biodiversity in the marine environment in high seas areas of the South Pacific Ocean, consistent with international law and best practice. The European Union has fishing interests in the South Pacific and is therefore obliged, under the terms of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, to cooperate with other interested parties in the management and conservation of the region's resources. The Union has participated in this process from the start and has played an active and constructive role. The text of the Convention was agreed in November 2009 and has been open for signature since 1 February 2010. It is advisable for the Union to sign the Convention in the very near future in order to show leadership and strong support for the establishment of this RFMO. Attached is the Proposal for a Council Decision on the signature, on behalf of the European Union, of the Convention on the Conservation and Management of High Seas Fishery Resources in the South Pacific Ocean.

The Structured Dialogue is an initiative launched by the European Commission (EC) to discuss the involvement of civil society organizations and local authorities in the EC development cooperation. It aims at increasing the effectiveness of all stakeholders involved in EC development cooperation, by building on the momentum gained by international and European debates. The official launch of the initiative took place on the 23rd of March in Brussels.

Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), said the EU has failed to convince the developing world that it is serious about global warming.Speaking in an unusually candid manner during a European Parliament hearing on Wednesday (14 April), De Boer said the UN climate negotiations in Copenhagen last year had been dominated by a sense of "suspicion". The December UN conference ended with a loose agreement, the Copenhagen Accord, which left Europeans "disappointed" because it contained no firm commitment from world nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. "A lot of the reason why this process has been moving so slowly is because of suspicion, especially on the part of developing counties," said De Boer, who will step down from the UNFCCC in July to take an advising role at consulting firm KPMG. European leaders routinely refer to the EU's 2020 target to reduce emissions by 20% on 1990 levels as the most ambitious in the world.But the UN climate chief suggested that the target will in fact be easy to achieve, raising suspicion from developing countries that it is only a smokescreen."Many of the discussions that you have in Europe are not terribly private," he said. "And the rest of the world knows that the European Commission said to EU countries that achieving the minus 20% was a piece of cake and that achieving minus 30% isn't going to ruin the European economy. So countries in the rest of the world are asking themselves: 'If that's true, then why is this minus 30 now being taken off the table?"